


run away with me (anytime you want)

by punkrockdog



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, brief mentions of death, mart crowley's The Boys in the Band as a plot device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockdog/pseuds/punkrockdog
Summary: the night of his play, neil perry runs away. todd doesn't come with him.nine years later, he gets another chance.(title from summertime by my chemical romance)
Relationships: Todd Anderson/Neil Perry
Comments: 1
Kudos: 69





	run away with me (anytime you want)

**_1959_ **

There’s a knock at the window. Todd stills. 

Another knock, louder this time. 

He shifts in his bed so he can see out into the night. He's delighted to see Neil, red cheeked and panting, grinning like a lunatic. He motions for Todd to open the window. Todd steps out of bed, hissing at the cold wood floor. He pries open the window, though he and Neil are still separated by the screen. 

“Neil, it’s freezing! Jesus Christ, it’s - your lips are  _ blue, _ Neil, come in, or go home, or - “

“I'm running away,” Neil says plainly, as though he’s saying it’s snowing. (It’s  _ snowing,  _ and Neil is in a robe and slippers.)

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m running away, Todd. I'm leaving. Tonight.” 

“Where are you going to go?”

Neil's still smiling. In the snow and moonlight, he almost doesn’t look human. Todd's convinced that he’s not, not at all. 

“I don’t know! New York, or California, or Oregon. Does it matter?”

“No I - I guess not. Have you told anyone else?” Todd says. He hates the thought of telling Charlie, or Knox, or Meeks or Pitts or Keating. He hates the thought of Neil leaving at all. 

“What? No, Todd, I'm - I'm asking you to come with me,” Neil whispers brightly, leaning in so his nose is pressed against the screen. 

“Neil, I can't.”

Neil's face falls. His eyes get shiny, in the same way they did the first day they met and his father yelled at him in the hall. He looks like the perfect picture of devastation, like what poets write about when they mean grief. Oscar Wilde would have a field day with that damn face. 

“Why not?” 

It’s angry, but also sad and bitter, cracking ever so slightly, and Todd wants to crumble. 

“I’ve got - I've got school to go to and... and what would my parents think? What about the society?”

“Screw the society! This is about us, Todd. About you and me,” Neil says, and he sounds almost desperate now. 

“What ‘us’? What’re you… what do you mean?”

“Don’t do this, Todd. You know what I mean.  _ Us _ ,” he says fondly, and he puts his hand on Todd's where it’s pressed up against the screen. Todd recoils. 

“Neil, I'm not - you’re a fine friend, but we’re - I’m not... I don't love you,” Todd says frantically. It sounds wrong, but it’s not like he can take it back. 

“Don’t say that. Don’t you fucking say that to me, Anderson,” Neil spits. 

“Neil, I’m sorry - “

“No, don’t start. God, I’m really fucking stupid, aren’t I?”

Todd doesn’t say anything, just watches as Neil wipes a hand under his eyes and sniffs. He wants to rip the dumb screen off and take Neil’s hand, snow and cold and anger be damned. 

“You’re the smartest person I know, Neil,” Todd says, a beat too late. Neil gives him a sad smile, and then his face shifts into something meaner, something furious. 

“I’m going. Whether you come with me or not, I'm - I'm leaving. If I stay here, I’ll die.”

He says it with such fervent that Todd feels compelled to believe him. 

He watches as Neil walks away, back into the woods, leaving footprints that’ll be gone by morning. All of his things are still in the room. His pillow, his blanket, his cologne and his pencils and it isn’t until Todd has a sweatshirt pressed up against his face that he realizes he’s crying. It smells like Neil, the whole fucking room smells like Neil and Todd’s suffocating with it, suffocating on what he should have said and done and how he should be walking through the snow with Neil right now instead of inhaling his sweatshirt like a freak. 

He sits down on his bed, stomach heavy with some sort of dread. He misses Neil already - he misses Neil so much his stomach hurts. 

Neil doesn’t get to just  _ leave. _ It’s not fair, and it’s selfish, and Todd would hate him horribly if…

He’s not sure. It doesn't  _ matter _ , because Neil is gone, and Todd is alone again, and nothing seems better than going to sleep right now. 

Maybe when he opens his eyes Neil will be at his desk reading, and it all will have been a shitty nightmare. 

_Please God, let this be a dream._ _Let me wake up._

**_1968_ **

“Todd? Todd Anderson?”

Todd whips his head around, because he’d know that voice anywhere. 

“Neil Perry! Oh - Oh my God!”

They’re both smiling, and the other people in the bookstore are definitely staring, but it doesn’t matter. because  _ Neil Perry and Todd Anderson  _ are back together again. 

Neil looks the same, though his hair is longer and pushed back. Todd has the compulsion to brush a stray loc off his forehead. He shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“It’s been awhile! I haven’t seen you since - “

“Welton! You ran away the night of your play, remember? What was it, it was Shakespeare - “

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream, yeah. How’s Knox? Pitts? Does Keating still teach? God, Todd, How are  _ you?” _

Todd blushes, feeling seventeen again. He's missed Neil, he really has, but he won’t act like his life has been horrible. 

“I'm good, you know, uh, I published a few poems,” he says, because  _ I have a book  _ sounds too pompous. 

“Shut up, Anderson. I know about your book. I have it, dummy,” Neil teases. Todd laughs loudly, a little startled but surprisingly very warm at the thought of Neil owning and reading his book. 

“And what’s this about you in some big play, huh? The Boys in the Band?”

Now he’s got Neil, whose smile flattens into something bashful as he looks away. Todd had seen Neil's face on a flier, looking too serious and sad but nevertheless  _ Neil.  _ He’d taken it home and tucked it in his sock drawer. 

“Yeah, well, it’s no book but - it’s a lot of fun. Charlie's in it with me, actually. He moved up here after he got um, kicked out.”

Todd winces. He'd heard about that but had no way of contacting him. He'd just been desperately worried about two of his dearest friends. 

“I can get you tickets,” Neil blurts out. “For the show, I mean. If - if you want. I could probably swing two if you have a wife or - “

“No. No wife. Just… just me.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool.”

_ Cool? _

“Do you - ?”

Neil's silent for a second. He cocks his head to the side a bit, a quirk that Todd doesn’t recognize but finds just as endearing as the ones he’s used to. 

“No, no wife, either.”

_ Thank God,  _ Todd thinks, though he’s not really sure why. 

Todd scribbles down his address, and Neil leaves with a promise to send the tickets and dinner after the show. Todd leaves feeling lighter than he has in almost nine years. 

Neil Perry has that kind of effect on people. 

**_one week later_ **

Todd shifts nervously in his seat. Charlie had found him in the lobby of the theatre, plucked the playbill out of his hand and told him to go in “totally virgin,” winked and then left. 

_ That’s Charlie for you,  _ Todd thinks with a smile. 

The theatre is small, cozy and homey and very much a place Neil would be working. He looks at the thick red curtains and thinks of seeing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, how that had felt like the only night that could ever matter. As the lights dim, he realizes how stupid teenagers are. He realizes how stupid  _ he  _ is. 

Todd watches Neil and Charlie come on stage. Charlie has a fancy fur robe on, and he’s blow drying his hair. Todd shifts in his seat. 

For a second, Todd is so happy to see Neil, he doesn’t focus on the dialogue. He blinks, and Neil has taken his shirt off. 

“Besides, I had to come into town for a birthday party, right?” Neil says. on stage, Charlie rolls his eyes. 

_ Birthday party,  _ Todd thinks. _ This play is about a birthday party.  _

“If there's one thing I'm not ready for, it’s five screaming queens singing Happy Birthday,” Charlie sneers. Todd's heart drops to the pit of his stomach. 

“Are you calling me a screaming queen or a tired fairy?” Neil says listlessly. Todd feels his face flush. 

“I beg your pardon. There will be six tired screaming fairy queens, and one anxious queer,” Charlie recites, and the audience laughs. 

There were seven of them, back at Welton, and Todd doesn’t have to think very hard about who the anxious queer would be. He adjusts his collar. 

It’s a good show, it really is. Neil's character - Donald, he thinks his name is - talks about how all of his problems seem to stem from his parents, and it makes Todd want to both laugh and cry. How fitting, how funny, how terrible. 

There are more characters, more men, and they’re all - they’re all  _ gay,  _ and Todd is so nervous it feels like his stomach is eating itself. He doesn’t have a problem with it. He doesn’t have a problem with it when it’s anyone but himself. 

He’s always known, in some way, that he’s…  _ something. He _ had cared for Neil, in a different way than he had the other poets. He hasn’t had a girlfriend since his freshman year of college, and that had ended  _ poorly.  _

He refuses to follow that train of thought. 

Todd stays in his seat during intermission. There's no point going into the lobby; it’s not like he has any friends to talk to, and it’s not like he’s going to mingle. He stares at his hands and tries not to think about anything until the house lights flash once, twice, and Neil comes back on stage. 

The second act is more depressing than the first, and Todd is enraptured the entire time. 

“Let's play a game,” Charlie says, and slams a telephone onto the coffee table. 

The game is to call the one person you’ve truly loved. Todd's mouth goes dry. He knows without a doubt who he would call. and currently, he’s on stage looking at Charlie like he’s crazy. (It’s not an unfamiliar expression, but it’s without the bemused affection Neil usually has running underneath everything.)

Todd closes his eyes. the sounds of an argument come from the stage. 

_ I love Neil,  _ he thinks, once, terrified. 

He opens his eyes and looks at Neil and he knows, he  _ knows.  _

And he’s determined not to fuck it up this time. 

The rest of the show passes in a blur. Distantly, he registers standing up for the bows. He thinks that somehow he’s walked to the lobby. Someone points him in the direction of the stagedoor. 

The whole time, the same chorus repeats in his head over and over and over.  _ I love him.  _

He’s breathless by the time he’s outside, new realizations bubbling up in his chest and mixing together like chemicals, reacting like acid. 

He needs to see Neil  _ now,  _ talk to him and apologize for nine years ago and thank him, he needs to  _ thank  _ him for making him realize, well, this.

Charlie steps out the door. He wraps Todd in a hug. Todd must look scared to death, because he asks him what’s wrong. 

“I'm in love with Neil,” Todd whispers. 

Charlie laughs. 

“We’ve all been in love with Neil. Props to you for sticking with it this whole time.”

“You - ?”

“Oh, Todd,” Charlie says softly. Todd blushes, thankful for the dim lighting. 

Neil pushes open the door, and once he sees Todd his smile brightens and he rushes forward to hug him. 

“Wasn’t that great? Wasn’t that fantastic!” Neil exclaims, and Todd's heart swells and dips as Neil jumps around. 

“Neil, I - “ Todd begins, even though not even he knows what he’s going to say.

“Didn’t you love it, Todd?” Neil asks, and Todd swears he hears  _ didn’t you love me?  _ Charlie snorts.

“Yes! It was… it was great. I thought - “

“I’m taking you out to dinner! I’m taking you both out to dinner!”

Todd laughs at Neil's wild enthusiasm. None of it seems like an act anymore, not like it did when they were younger. He's so damn  _ happy,  _ and Todd nearly cries with it. 

“Can't do, Perry. I've got plans. Have fun, you two!” Charlie says briskly, already walking away. 

Neil and Todd look at each other and shrug. The walk to the restaurant is short, and Todd aches with the need to hold Neil's hand the whole way there. 

Neil babbles excitedly about the last nine years of his life, telling Todd stories from college and theatre companies and what it’s been like to live with Charlie. Todd listens, relishing in the sound of Neil's voice, horribly regretful that he wasted so much time being an idiot. 

“Neil,” he says suddenly. They've stopped just outside of the restaurant, Neil in the process of offering a cigarette to todd. 

“What is it? Is everything okay?”

“I - “ Todd starts. How does he say this? It feels dangerous, red hot and alive. “I think - neil, I'm sorry I didn’t come with you when you asked me to, but… but I would. Now. If you asked me.”

“Todd,” Neil says, quiet and low. 

“I love you,” Todd says to the wall Neil is leaning against. 

Neil just looks at him. He looks at him and looks at him and then he grabs Todd's wrists, pulls him to an alley Todd hadn’t even  _ noticed,  _ and kisses him. Neil's hand is splayed across the side of Todd's neck, his thumb rubbing along the line of Todd's jaw. 

Todd presses his hands against Neil's hips. He feels lightheaded, dizzy. 

Neil pulls back. 

“I love you too,” he says. His mouth is red, wet with spit. Todd means forward and kisses him again. 

The next time Neil pulls back, he buries his face in Todd's neck. Todd clutches him close. He can’t help but feel grateful that Neil got away that night. He thinks of Neil saying  _ if I stay here, I'll die.  _ He thinks of a thousand terrible realities where Neil never escaped. 

“Where do you wanna go?” Neil murmurs. Todd hums, a question. 

“You said you’d come with me, if I asked you. Have you ever been to California?”

Todd laughs. “No, I never have.”

“Me neither. We can leave tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Todd says. He moves Neil so he can hold his face in his hands. “Okay. We’ll leave.”

This time, Todd isn’t sure who kisses who. He doesn’t really care. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this because about a year ago me and my best friend mel had a conversation anout which dead poet would play who in tbitb and then,,, well one thing led to another and now here we are
> 
> so yes this is dedicated to my beautiful friend melanie who i love more than anything. mwah
> 
> come find me on tumblr @bloodyknucklez !


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